


Braintrust

by Karolis



Category: Star Trek 2009
Genre: Gen, Other, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-28
Updated: 2010-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:51:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karolis/pseuds/Karolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/st_respect/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/st_respect/"><strong>st_respect</strong></a>'s Ship Wars 2010, on behalf of Team Crackship. The prompt was "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone", whose lyrics are <a href="http://www.lyrics007.com/Bill%20Withers%20Lyrics/Ain't%20No%20Sunshine%20Lyrics.html">here</a>. Warning: Character undeath?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Braintrust

  
This is a story about loss. As in, first Pike loses his legs and then he loses the _Enterprise_ and then he wakes up dead.

He dies at dark the hell o'clock in the morning: blinks his eyes open and says "OW" and "FUCK" and that's it. Three hours later he blinks his eyes again. He knows something's wrong when he wakes up. Something's gone; he can't get warm. Takes him a moment to figure out he isn't breathing, and then he shrieks a shriek Jim Kirk'd be proud of.

As some smarmy bastard of a doctor explains, later, post-mortem reanimation is a rare reaction to Centaurian slug-spit. Hence the last month's creeping paralysis, the sudden chills, the swings of appetite.

"I'm a --"

"Yes. Sir."

As it turns out, zombies are for real.

\---

Without bloodflow to the eyeballs, the world's a little dim. Like something's happened to the sun. But honestly, the dimness seems somehow appropriate; he's been feeling down lately. If Pike were a maudlin man he'd say: that ship took my heart when she left. He'd say: _Enterprise_ , my world's a darker place without you. He's not a maudlin man (he is, a little).

This is a story about love. As in, goddamn but he'd loved that ship, and then blah blah Romulans, and then he had to go and die.

Pike dies on a Monday, of course. Even in the future, Mondays suck. On Tuesday he gets hold of himself. He's a methodical man, good with analysis and situations. He'll figure out this zombie thing.

Here's what he discovers: most of the literature is crap. He can walk and even run, no arms-front lurching. He's no more violent than usual, and no less intelligent. But he has a tendency to moan, if he doesn't watch himself, a low shambly noise that builds in his chest and comes crawling up his gullet. His voice is guttural and throaty. Still, he's more or less himself. Which is to say, he's a paper-caddy Earthbound admiral who lusts after open skies and a bridge before him. He'd loved who he was when he sat in that captain's chair, warming his behind with the byproducts of warp power. That ship was his. He'd watched her grow from wireforms to sleekness. He remembers the first time he'd managed to sneak on board the Enterprise, still incomplete, for some quiet time. Just him and the ship, alone on the bridge, just him and the chair and no pants and -- yeah.

He thinks about that chair and its supple leather and gleaming toggles and captain's log buttons and -- guess what else requires bloodflow. GodDAMNit.

On Wednesday, the _Enterprise_ arrives in spacedock, as Pike had known she would. It wasn't that he'd been tracking dock-schedules, even before his untimely death. It wasn't like that at all (it was).

\---

Also on Wednesday, Barnett summons him. "Look, Chris," he says, "I'm sorry." No shit, Pike thinks. He's been half expecting this. A moaning undead doesn't carry the same PR cachet as a crippled hero. Doesn't fit with Starfleet's image. Surely he understands.

"I know," he says. He understands. "I know, I know." He understands so well that he yanks off his own arm and beats Barnett over the head with it until the man's skull cracks. And then Pike eats his brains. "I know."

BRAAAAINS.

Also, SHIT. He was supposed to be nonviolent!

Anyway, there goes his Starfleet career.

He's standing in Barnett's chambers with grey matter slopping satisfyingly down his chin, drooling just a little, for style, when it hits him: he's happy. Really goddamn happy, for the first time since "Hi Christopher, I'm Nero." He wants to roll and writhe in the bloody mess on the floor, and then run naked through the corridors. He doesn't.

Maybe he ought to have left the guy alone, but you know what? BRAAAAINS. They're as good as sex with his captain's chair. They really are. And just like that, it's like the sun is back in the sky. He feels at home again.

\---

Thank God for Barnett's old-boys-club tact. He hadn't told anybody about Pike's demotion, which means Pike has time to get out. Thursday night he saunters his best saunter down to the shuttle bay, grabs a craft, and flies up to _Enterprise_. The ship's mostly deserted -- just that oddball engineer, and little Pavel -- and nobody would think to question him. Pike saunters to the empty bridge. It's sad to see it marked so well with signs of someone else's command. Little things, like the settings on the chair, the equations on the screens. The imprint of an ass that isn't his. Pike sighs. "James Tiberius Goddamn Kirk." Well, if anybody can handle this ship, it's that kid. Sometimes love means letting go: this bridge isn't home anymore.

He walks over to the window and gazes out. Spacedock's pretty busy, lots of little ships here and there. Then something catches his eye: perfect. PERFECT.

One last matter of business. From his pocket he takes a bright red marker and on the captain's chair he scrawls: CHRIS PIKE WAS HERE. He's sorry he won't see Kirk's face.

\---

This is a story about life and love and living it. And life and loss and losing it. And letting go, and finding your dream, and not letting go at all. And brains.

Pike ends up in Barnett's private ship, lounging on its smaller bridge while the dock-lights fade behind him. They won't discover it's gone till morning.

He'll sail the skies, searching out officious bastards and giving them the old arm-beatdown and brain-barbeque. Eventually he'll get himself a crew. He's good at people-finding -- he was a recruiter once. He can feel them out there, waiting to be slotted into place like pieces of a puzzle, or an arm into its socket. It's a big universe.

Pike grins. Sure beats the hell out of the Admiralty.

Ain't no sun, but there are stars, and he's away.


End file.
